Christopher Ryburn in Australia at 23:4:38 Monday February 9 98
Greetings! I am an Amstrad fan from way back, my last machine being a
386 notebook that lasted me many years here in Australia. My son came
home with a PC5286 last week, and a printer he had bought at a garage
sale fro $10.00! The machine booted up, but you guess it, the hard
drive was incorrectly set. I took the top off, checked the hard drive
(a seagate), and got the info from them. When I booted the machine up
again, I now don't even get to boot up. After turning on I get a blank
screen and no activity. I've reset the cmos as the manual suggests. No
change. Is it possible the video chip is kaput? Help!!
My son is anxiously waiting for me to get it going. Amstrad answers:I don't see that the video chip would have
died overnight unless you did something real nasty like hitting it with
a hammer or something! Far more likely is that some cable has just been
knocked off inside or a chip knocked loose. It's not uncommon for the
SIMMs to get knocked when you're inside a PC so give them a firm push to
make sure they're seated and wiggle any loose cables in there. If there
are any other socketed chips (and the CMOS and BIOS in particular) make
sure they are pushed fully home into their sockets. Also have
a look at the VGA socket/plug to make sure that there wasn't a pin bent
when removing/attaching the monitor and, if possible, try that monitor
out on a different PC to see if it's that that has gone West.markie robson-scott in UK at 13:49:44 Monday February 9 98
I have just tried to use my Amstrad 8512 after 2 years of it sitting in
a corner. Now it won't read the start-up discs. I need to get some data
off a disc. Does anyone know somewhere that transfers data onto Mac
discs? Amstrad answers:Did you read this? Although it says "Windows" I
really meant "any modern computer". Try Mapej or Dave's DDS.Will Thurley at 11:38:24 Monday February 9 98
I have been trying to add a second floppy drive to my PPC640 and managed
to get hold of a 720k drive that works fine on other PCs and fit into my
PPC640 perfectly with the correct connections. However my system won't
recognise the second drive. I tried disconnecting the standard A drive
and just connecting my new one but the computer start up gave me a
'SYSTEM ERROR - Faulty floopy driver or disk drive drive' or some't. I
remember you saying that a PPC640 cannot run 1.44MB drives due to the
higher clock speed. Could this be the problem with my 720k drive? Is the
fact that one floppy drive power cable has three wires and the other has
the third removed significant? Could the switch on the drive itself be
of any use? Thanks in advance. Amstrad answers:Yup, it sounds suspiciously like that drive
is really a 1.44MB mechanism (I suppose it would have been too much to
ask the manufacturers to actually put a label on the out side!!). You
really need a true 720K mechanism and in this day and age they probably
rarer than rocking horse droppings. It's vaguely possible that CPC/Edcom
may stock them as spare parts but you are probably talking some pretty
major wonga to get hold of one and is it really worth it when a whole
PPC is worth £20-30?steve in UK at 17:50:42 Sunday February 8 98
Help. I have a Sinclair PC200 and Monitor, its a Amstrad S14cm the one
that came with the P200, but the D connector on the computer end is
faulty, I need the Pinouts for the monitor there are 10 holes on the
computer end and 10 wires to fill the holes but what and where, if poss
I need someone to give tell me what colours to what pin NO. Help Amstrad answers:I think your only hope would be to contact
CPC/Edcom and see if they have a service
manual for that monitor. It will be a standard monitor (either CGA or MD
depending on whether it is colour or not) so at a pinch you may be able
to pick up a replacement at a computer auction, junk shop or in
classified ads. but the fact that CGA is now 14 years old may make it
quite tricky to track one down.T. G. Miller in Peru, Indiana (USA) at 13:56:0 Sunday February 8 98
I have a dinosaur Amstrad PC6400, double floppy (5 1/4) I have put a
hard card into it and also attached a 3 1/2 floppy backpack.
Unfortunately, I do not have enough guts in this machine to run windows
95 and other programs. Any suggestions how I can upgrade this monster.
My wife is absolutely in love with this machine and will not hear of
getting rid of it. Please, someone give me some suggestions or point me
in the right direction. Unfortunately, living in Peru, Indiana (USA) not
too many people have ever heard of an AMSTRAD computer let alone ever
seeing one in the flesh. If you can help, e-mail me at tgm@netusa1.net
Thanks T.G. Miller Amstrad answers:Hi, as I told you via email I'm afraid
Lawson's first law of computing applies here. It's the old "can't make a
silk purse out of a sow's ear" syndrome as described here.Marcin Frankowski in Wellington, New Zealand at 15:2:38 Saturday February 7 98
I would like to add to my message posted a few hours ago: the IBM
drivers for IBM Proprinter series work with DMP-2160 as well as the
Epson FX-80; also several OKI drivers (eg. OKI ML 182 Elite/IBM) are
working just fine. Best results are with Epson and IBM Proprinter
drivers. Sorry for messing up. Amstrad answers:No problemo and it's always useful for people
to tell me about these things here or in email as it helps me to make
this a more comprehensive site. The reason all those different drivers
works is basically because at one time Epson set the standard for 9 pin
printers and everyone made sure that there own printers worked like the
Epson because there was tons of DOS based software that didn't have the
wide range of printer support that Windows does but you could always
pretty much bet on it having an "Epson compatible" (or FX80) entry.
That was in the DOS days when each program had it's own individual
printer support. 'Course one of the joys of Windows is that you just
have to make the driver selection once and get it working and then you
can be sure that every subsequent Windows based program that you use
with it will just work. Anyway, thanks for being so helpful.Marcin Frankowski in Wellington, New Zealand at 13:35:7 Saturday February 7 98
Hi! I just went through your tips for getting Amstrad printers to work
under Win 95, and would like to add that my Amstrad DMP-2160 works well
using not only Epson driver, but IBM too (tested it with
"IBM-compatible generic 9-pin" driver supplied with my version of
Windows, perhaps it does have some equivalent for a particular IBM
model). It printed slower, and graphics was worse than when used with
Epson driver, but it might be a solution for someone not having access
to Epson driver. By the way, the driver for Epson FX-80 is the same as
the driver named "Epson Compatible 9-pin", if it is any help to
anybody. Amstrad answers:Thanks for that additional info, I'll update
my page to include that though I think you'll find that everyone who
has Windows 95 will have the Epson drivers because a) they ARE (or at
least were) THE industry standard and have always been included
on the Windows 95 CD and discs. However I hadn't realised that there
was a generic "Epson compatible 9-pin" because, I guess through force
of habit, I have always just picked Epson FX80 for any 9 pin dot matrix
of unknown pedigree as 99 times out of 100 it just works.Nic Foxton in Skipton, North Yorkshire. at 0:24:20 Friday February 6 98
Is there anyone in the UK still selling the Pen Pad PDA600 and it's
accesories? I've found Directmobile in the US selling them at $50 a
piece, but the delivery is $85 - $100, so it's out of the question. Is
there anyone out there can help in the UK? Amstrad answers:The only person I know of in the UK who
might still have PDA600s is Peter Mydlarz at SCA Ltd who can(?) be found
at sca@sussex.co.uk but people
who have contacted me recently said that they have had difficulty
getting through to him both via phone and email so I kind of wonder if
the company has gone tits up (pardon the phrase!).
I'm astonished by that US delivery charge - for that money I'd expect
it delivered to my door by helicopter wrapped in gold leaf! If you knew
anyone in the US they could buy it for you and then mail it. However I
suppose that even with a $90 delivery charge it still works out at just
£85 (£1 = $1.64) and the cheapest I've ever known them to
be sold for in the UK is £99 so it's actually still a bargain
even with the extortionate delivery charge. Remember that when we first
sold them they were £299 and I think they actually cost
£140 just for the components alone!Ludo Sak in Den Bosch, The Netherlands at 23:19:47 Thursday February 5 98
Dear reader,
I have bought my dream phone! It it a bit on the late side, but I seldom
saw it and seldom had the opportunity to buy one: my very own IndexPhone
iX1000! Nice and clear design, functional (although the backup batery
was empty when I bought it) (due to long inventory time I guess)..
Q: Does the IndexLink software for linking the phone with a PC, still
exist? I'd love to have a copy of it! Thanks all! Ludo, who started his
computer carreer with a ZX81 in 83/84 Amstrad answers:Hi, one of the first computers I owned was a
ZX80 in 1980. As to Index Link, I'm afraid I don't know of a source for
the software but if someone out there reading this has a copy and wants
to email it to me (cliffl@amstrad.com) then I'll put
it up on my files download page for others to take a copy.David Bryan in E17 at 21:58:48 Thursday February 5 98
PRINTER PROBLEM WITH PCW9512.
I have a PCW 9512 with original printer which while trying it's best -
just cannot print. It feeds paper, the daisy wheel spins and the hammer
bashes the character BUT it JUST doesn't have enough impact to contact
the ribbon and transfer ink onto paper. (The ribbon does have ink by the
way). Looking at the print mechanism the hammer appears to be driven by
a solenoid. My initial diagnosis is that the current is insufficient to
the solenoid. The fact that the printing menu allows the printer impact
to be varied also makes me think that there is a degree of control for
the solenoid. Is is possible to change a configurable parameter to
increase the print impact and get the printer working again, or can you
suggest other repair options? Amstrad answers:I think it is suffering from the same ailment
that afflicts a lot of 9512s which is a hair line crack in the striking
hammer so that it is no longer able to deliver sufficient impact
pressure to actually print. There is only one solution and that is to
replace the print head. Spare parts are available as described here but it may be quite expensive and
considering that you can pick up second hand PCWs in small ads. for
£20 or less that may be the cheaper alternative to getting a
replacement. Also try Micro Mart that you will find in WH Smiths and
perhaps also try asking on news:comp.sys.amstrad.8bitColin McCormick in Plymouth, England at 20:27:35 Thursday February 5 98
A friend has just purchased a PcW10, but the CP/M boot disk is missing.
I know Locomotive do it at £15 but as a schoolkid living in care she
can't afford it. Anyone help? There's also a Spell checking disk but
we don't know how to get this to work. Did the PcW10 have spell
checking normally? I used to own a PcW512 so I have some idea what it's
about. Many thanks for any help (email reply if possible). Amstrad answers:Sorry but the only source I know of for the
disks is Locomotive. Perhaps some benevolent soul reading this will send
you a copy - I would myself expect that we no longer have either PCWs or
copies of the boot discs here any more. As for spell checking, I think
the PCW10 did include a copy of Locospell on the boot disc. It's use
should be fairly self evident as it just integrates into the main
Locoscript program but again, for the full facts, www.locomotive.com
really is the best source of information.Doug M in saskatchewan Canada at 18:7:39 Thursday February 5 98
I need a pin out for the keyboard of a Amstrad Model PC1386 Amstrad answers:Presumably you are thinking of either trying
to connect some other type of keyboard to a 1386 or the 1386 keyboard
to some other type of PC. This is not possible. For more details read
this.Doug in Surrey at 1:21:24 Wednesday February 4 98
Where can I get technical support or repairs for a JAZZ 16 Sound card
that came included in my PC9486 (purchased in December 94)?...The audio
output seems to have failed but control of the CD-ROM still works. The
Installation & Users guide supplied by Amstrad doesn't mention
manufacturer name or contact number. Checking some of the files seems
to indicate that the card was made by a company called Media Vision Inc
but looking this company up on the Web results in (an identiclly named
company)a marketing outfit. If your opinion is that it isn't feasible,
or worthwhile getting my card fixed - can you recommend an alternative?
Many thanks Amstrad answers:Well I'm afraid my brutally honest answer is
that it would be a waste of your time and money to get it repaired. You
can buy a brand new soundcard with equivalent functions to that card
for about £10-15. I'm sure it would cost you more than this in
postage alone even if you could find someone who could repair yours but
that leads me to another question - are you sure it's in need of
phyiscal repair. 99 times out of 100 soundcards don't work purely
because of a fault in the way in which the driving software has been
set up - course if the dog chewed it or something then I'm willing to
believe that it is physically damaged. If you are going to buy a new
one I'd consider spending a little bit more than the bottom end
£10-15, if you could stretch to just £50 you can get a far
more "sexy" soundcard but I guess it depends whether you are just using
it for playing WAV files and games sounds or whether you want to use it
for making real music. If the latter then I'd recommend getting a copy
of the Feb 98 "Sound on Sound" magazine form your local WH Smiths
(fraid it's a bit expensive at £3-60) but they have a comparison
of PC sound cards (for the purposes of making music) on page 102.Malc Davies in Oxfordshire UK at 2:57:35 Tuesday February 3 98
I have recently unearthed my CPC 6128 from the attic where it has spent
the last 5 years. The reason I stopped using it was a duff disk drive.
(simply a worn belt as I now realise). Having replaced the belt and got
the disc working I now seem to have another problem. Some of the keys
dont appear to work. Namely (SPC z v , . DEL) There are a couple of
others but I have left the list at home. I had a similar problem on a
Dragon 32 and it was a faulty chip. but in that instance I had all of
the drawings and quite a few manuals. Is anyone able to point me in the
right direction as to which chip it is worth changing. Its not the
membrane or the ribon cable to the board as I have tested all this out.
TIA Malc Amstrad answers:Well the keyboard is scanned by two chips,
one is the 8255 which is a three port parallel interface chip and the
other is the AY38912 sound chip which also contains an 8 bit I/O
parallel port and the AY chip is, itself, connected to one+ ports of the
8255. However, as I'm sure you know, silicon hardly ever goes wrong
(unless you apply hugely incorrect voltages to it!) and it is more
likely a fault in solder joints or cracks in PCB tracks so I'd maybe
just warm the solder pads on those ICs to hopefully cure any dry joints
and then "buzz out" the lines from the chips through the keyboard matrix
but it's that (very mechanical) matrix that I'd suspect most. The other
way that keyboards fail is actually because a broken joystick is
connected (and it's just an extension of the key matrix) so, before
anything else, I'd remove any joystick(s) that may be connected and see
if that solves the problem.Gilbert Durand in Woodward Oklahoma USA at 17:46:5 Sunday February 1 98
I have a xt 1640, It has 2 Floppys . 1. 3 1/2 1 5 1/4 the xt page tells
me that 1 should be a 720 drv & other a 360 . They both format at 360, I
did not know that a 3 1/2 360 was ever made. or is there something wrong
Thanks For any Help Gilbert Durand Woodward,OK USA Amstrad answers:Ah well the BIOS in a 1640 is fairly firmly
convinced that the floppy drives are both 360K 5.25" drives and even
though you and I know that B: is a 720K 3.5" it doesn't! Not yet anyway.
That's why you've got to tell it and the way you do that is by adding a
line to Config.Sys - now there are actually two ways to do it and I can
never totally remember the difference between the two methods but they
both achieve pretty much the same effect. Method one is to use a
DRIVPARM command while method two is to use a
DEVICE={wherever}\DRIVER.SYS command. In both cases the parameters
following the command are almost identical. From memory it is comething
like /D:1 /F:7 - where D:1 means the second drive (aka B:), D:0 would
be drive A:. And F:7 is the type of drive and F:7 means a 720K 3.5"
drive (other values documented in your MS-DOS manual).Tristan Hales at 14:10:5 Friday January 30 98
Hello, Has anyone got a boot disk for a PCW9512+ ?, (or a link). Thank
you Tristan Amstrad answers:Oops, sorry! I could have sworn that my PCW
page listed www.locomotive.com as
the place to get boot disks but I just checked and it didn't so I've now
added that information here.Thijs Riemersma in Zeist, The Netherlands at 16:19:41 Wednesday January 28 98
My uncle has a PPC640 which is slowly but surely falling apart. He
bought a Toshiba Portable as a substitute and asked me to set things up
and transfer his data. On the PPC he uses the program PPC Organizer.
This program does NOT work on the Toshiba (Error: This is not an
Amstrad!). Does PPC Organizer exist for a standard DOS machine or is
there an emulator for the PPC? The CPC emulator does not seem to do the
trick. Thanks for helping out. Amstrad answers:I seem to remember that PPC Organizer was
written by a company called "Triangle" so you'd need to track them down
(if they still exist) to see if they had a "generic" version that works
on any IBM PC compatible. The PPC is 99.99% IBM compatible but it has a
slight oddity in it's video controller that is slightly different to a
"Standard" CGA controller and the Organiser software looks for this and
refuses to work unless it thinks it is working on a PPC. This was done
because the software authors were effectively "giving it away free" with
the PPC and didn't want people to be able to use this "free" version on
other computers (so presumably they DID sell a generic version). The
only way you can make it work on a non-PPC would be to debug the code
and find the test (where it is doing I/O to video controller I/O
addresses) and some how patch the code to make it think it is on a PPC
even when it isn't. You would, of course, need to understand 8086
assembler programming to do this (and you'd be in violation of the
licence agreement that came with the software). There's no such thing as
a PPC "emulator" because a PPC is, like I say, an IBM PC clone and so
any PC emulates it apart from that one small detail about it's odd video
controller. If you can't get it working then I'd point out that there
were loads of "Personal Information Management (PIM)" programs written
for PC compatibles around that time. Probably the most famous was one
called "Sidekick" and you may still be able to get copies of that. By
the way, the CPC was a Z80 based games computer we made that had 64K of
memory. It is NOTHING to do with the PPC which was a much later 8068
based IBM PC clone with 640K of memory.Bryan Lurring in N.Ireland at 20:23:59 Tuesday January 27 98
Where can I get software for a PC 5086? (It was bought in 1991) Amstrad answers: Facetious answer - you go to your local
computer store and buy anything that says it's designed for an IBM
compatible PC. Real answer - Of course it's not really that easy
because that is a very old PC based on the 8086 processor with only
640K of conventional memory. However there were tens of thousands of
programs written in the old IBM PC/XT days and you used to be able to
download buckets full from bulletin boards all over the place.
Unfortunately as the internet has grown the availability of BBS has
reduced and what's more people only seem to put "modern" (i.e. Windows)
software on web sites but I have had a hunt round and there are some
sites with old DOS stuff. I think one might have been called something
like www.msdos.com but I don't quite remember (I'm sure you'll find it
via a search engine. Another line of attack is
that the file libraries on both Compuserve and AOL are stuffed full of
old software from the late 80s and early 90s and there's tons of old
DOS based programs to choose from there if you happen to be a member
of either service.Will Thurley at 11:4:18 Tuesday January 27 98
I recently bought a PPC640. I also was given a Tandy Z80 based machine
which I ripped to pieces to see what I could salvage from it. The only
thing worth taking was a hard drive which may or may not work. I'm
wondering whether it is possible to connect this hard drive up to my
PPC. I took my PPC apart to discover cables which I assume would be used
to connect a second floppy drive. There is a two pin connector which is
presumably the power supply and a fifty pin connector for data transfer.
Would these be suitable for connecting to an old hard drive? My only
real concern is that the hard drive has an extra connection which has
about twenty pins. Thanks in advance.
Hi, I just wrote to you about connecting a hard drive to my PPC640. I am
also wondering how to replace the battery as I unfortunately have to
tell the machine what time it is every time I switch it on. I'm sorry to
bother you with such trivialities which I would probably find in the
manual but unfortunately I don't have one. Thanks again.
I've just thought of another question for you regarding my PPC640. I
have connected a green IBM monitor to my PPC which seems to do a fairly
good job of offering me a variety of shades of green to replace the four
colours however when I run graphical software that would be okay on the
LCD screen the monitor flashes several of the colours making the
programs fairly unusable. I have fiddled with the DIP switches to try
and solve the problem but with no joy. Any ideas? Thanks again. Amstrad answers:As you've no doubt spotted, I've edited your
three questions together. The first thing I suggest you do is read my portables page to see what I say about PPC hard
drives. The PPC does not have a built in hard disk interface and any
loose cables are for something else (the modem at a wild guess). To add
an HD you'd need to add an IDE interface controller but this is very
technically difficult because the ISA bus that is brought to the back of
the unit is unbuffered and unlatched so it's not a simple case of
running the pins to the right fingers on an IDE ISA card - there's an
awful lot more to it than that! Anyway, the hard disk out of a Tandy Z80
8-bit computer is unlikely be suitable for a PC anyway. As for the
battery. The machine runs from five (I think it is) alkaline "C" cells
that you put inside the unit. They should maintain the RTC from one use
to the next. A "green" IBM monitor is almost certainly an "MD" monitor
and can only be used to display text modes. You'd need to connect an IBM
CGA monitor in order to show graphics modes - remember this is an IBM
PC/XT compatible we are delaing with here - not an IBM AT with VGA!!Vince Roberts in Gloucester, England at 11:13:14 Sunday January 25 98
My father runs a small charity group and has just inherited a PPC512
for "word-smithing"! However, he does not have any diskettes, for the
OS, or anything else. Are these obtainable. It would appear from your
web site, that MS-DOS 3.3, for example, on a 720k diskette would be OK?
Does the floppy require the normal sector, etc., formatting? Amstrad answers:Spot on! You can just use any version of
MS-DOS, PC-DOS or DR-DOS you choose as long as it is on 720K, NOT 1.44MB
floppies. If you want the "real" PPC system disks then visit my file
archive and get ppcdisks.zipDavid Hughes in Bangor gwynedd Wales at 8:22:46 Saturday January 24 98
I am trying to setup the autoexec.bat file on a pc1640sd the file was
corrupted by aa friend using the computer and I dont have the setup
disks. To make things more complicated the machine I am using to send
this is a Windows based machine and not mine can you send me an e-mail
list of the standard autoexec.bat file. Anyhelp would be of use
David Hughes Amstrad answers:You maybe didn't realise this but the answer
was here all the time. If you go to my files download page and get the
470001.Zip file which is an image of the first 1640 system disk then
you'll find a copy of the "standard" Autoexec.Bat file in there. Just
download the file, unzip it and then use FDCOPY to copy the compressed
floppy image (CFI) file onto a blank 5.25" disk and you'll then have an
exact copy of the 1640 system disk number 1.Nigel A in Sydney Australia at 11:21:32 Thursday January 22 98
I have an ALT-386SX with 4megRAM, 120megHDD and Windows 95. Is it
possible to fit a half card modem in the expansion slot. I have tried
with Nettcom INModem34plus but cant get it to work. Are there jumpers
or dip-switches to alter? Are there more suitable modems? Amstrad answers:I know from personal experience that it is
quite possible to use a modem in the ISA slot but it must be jumpered
to appear as a COM port that won't clash with the ALT's existing COM
port which is, I guess, your problem.Brian Watson in Sutton, ELY, Cambs at 18:15:48 Wednesday January 21 98
Re: my recent posting on expanding the PcW16's memory, John of Cirtech
has responded that his company do not offer upgrades of this type.
Reason given was partly the cost vs benefit argument, which I suspected
anyway, but the other point he made was that the latest o/s, v1.12 I
assume, would not support an upgraded "cabinet". Is that correct?
Regards. Amstrad answers:John is actually wrong. Our OS in the PcW16
is really quite clever and will dynamically adjust if it spots the
existence of the second MB of Flash (and DRAM for that matter). I know
this works because I've got the only PcW16 in the whole world with 2MB
of Flash and 2MB of DRAM fitted but, like I said, there isn't really
much to be gained by it.Demian De Wit in A public library in Antwerp at 17:21:23 Wednesday January 21 98
Last week I posted a question about my dead PenPad PDA 600. First, let
me thank you for your quick answer! Like you said, I tried shorting the
battery terminals, but still my PDA won't start! Is there anything else
I can try to make my pad work again? Maybe a component that has to be
replace or something? PLEASE HELP ME, I'M DESPERATE WITHOUT MY PDA! MAKE
MY PORTABLE COMPUTING LIFE HAPPY AGAIN! Thanks in advance! Amstrad answers:Well it's impossible to diagnose which chip
may have gone without an engineer being able to test the thing directly
so my only suggestion is for you to contact computer service centres in
your area and see if any of them can have a look at it.Serge Bloch in Brussels ,Belgium at 13:18:50 Wednesday January 21 98
Hello, In all your information that can be find on this site I can't get
any information for or about the Amstrad PC7386SX40. How do I get into
setup with a good working battery? How large is the setup file on your
site? Thanks ps : Is it normal that downloding and getting on this site
takes a very very long time ( average loading speed of 0.3 kbps when by
oder site a have a loading speed betwen 13 and 20 kbps) .I have a direct
connection with the belgacom backboon thru a 3com ethernet card
10MB Amstrad answers:You know when you switch on the 7386 and it
says "[F2] to enter Setup" on the bottom of the screen. Well that's a
clue! You don't need the Setup.Exe file from this web site because
that's for the older PC models that didn't have Setup built into the
BIOS.
As for speed of access, that's because the UK Online site where these
pages live get totally over-run by "home users" once the phone switches
to cheap rate in the UK outside office hours (0900GMT to 1700GMT). It's
also partly a problem with the UK Online backbone provider and UKO have
stated that they are going to switch to Easynet (who recently bought UK
Online) for their backbone in a couple of weeks and then the access
speed whould be dramatically improved.Dave Peacock in Essex, UK at 9:55:19 Tuesday January 20 98
I have a 2086/30 and the cursor does not show up on the C prompt I.E. I
get C:\> but no cursor. I can still use the computer, and the cursor
does show in some cases. I have used a cursor defining program to try to
get it back without success. Please help. Amstrad answers:One thing you may be interested to know is
that if DOS runs in text mode (the norm) then it does show a cursor but
if it runs in a graphics mode then you don't get a cursor. You may have
noticed how, sometimes, when you exit from a piece of graphics software
back to the DOS prompt there is no cursor. Using the DOS command MODE
CO80 will normally force it back to a text mode where the cursor
should re-appear. My guess is the reason why yours is always
disappearing is that some program that starts either in Config.Sys or
Autoexec.Bat is switching to graphics mode and forgetting to put things
back afterwards. Try booting with no Config or Autoexec and see if you
still have the problem. If not, keep adding lines back to each file and
rebooting until you find the culprit. Or, if MODE CO80 restores the
cursor just put that command in as the last executed line of Autoexec.Brian Watson in Sutton, ELY, Cambs. England at 14:0:14 Monday January 19 98
I have been asked by a PcW16 user to whom I supplied a v1.12 upgrade
disc where he could obtain the chips necessary to increase the memory,
or "ROM and RAM" as he expressed it. He also asked if I could suggest
anyone who could do the job for him. Bearing in mind that the present
memory seems perfectly adequate for all current software, is the area
on the circuit board for memory expansion socketed? And *do* you know
of anyone offering this service? Thanks. Amstrad answers:Well there are sites for an extra 1MB of
DRAM and an extra 1MB of Flash on the circuit board but they are not
socketed - just solder pads so the job needs to be done by an engineer
who is competent at soldering close pitch devices. Anyway, as you say, apart
from the flash giving a larger "Cabinet" there is very little reason to
upgrade. If the user REALLY wants to upgrade then John Robertson at
Cirtech in Scotland knows the insides of a PcW16 like the back of his
hand and would be the best person to approach about doing the job.
Cirtech are on 01835 823898 and john can be emailed as
john@cirtech.co.ukWind from Russia in Moscow January 19 98 at 6:19:4 Monday January 19 98
Tell me about PPC-512D Amstrad answers:That's a very general question but in a
nutshell, it's an extremely ugly 8MHz 8086 based portable PC with 512K
of DRAM, two 720K 3.5" floppy drives, a 102 key keyboard and a small,
non-backlit, LCD screen that shows 640x200 CGA graphics.mark farrugia London in Rotherhithe, London at 23:54:46 Sunday January 18 98
I've come across an old departmental PCW1640 machine with a 20MB HD
that was about to be scrapped and I wonder if there is any way to:
a) change the 5" drive to a more useable 3.5" drive.
b) Its HD has just been reformatted, is there anyway I can install DOS
and GWBASIC for experiments etc.
c) Will I be able to install a minimised word to use for wProcessing
I know its a tall order but thanks anyway ! Amstrad answers:a) You can't change A: but you can add a 3.5"
B: but it MUST be 720K, not 1.44MB - you then use either DRIVPARM or
DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS in Config.Sys to over-ride the BIOS's assumption that
B: should be 360K 5.25".
b) To install DOS just boot from a floppy containing the DOS you want to
use (I'd higly recommend MS-DOS 6.22) then FORMAT C: /S then copy
all the DOS files from the floppies into a \DOS directory on C:
c) In the good ole bad ole days there were loads of DOS based word
processors available and many were shareware/PD that you could download
from bulletin boards. It's possible some of these may have migrated to
people's web pages.Paul Verity in Essex,uk at 19:57:19 Sunday January 18 98
I have a PC9486, and am having trouble getting the m/b to accept a 16mb
72pin (fast page) simm it only recognises it as a 4mb simm, any help
much appreciated. Please reply via email. Thanks. Amstrad answers:OK, will reply via email.Dave Green in Bristol at 21:2:45 Friday January 16 98
I can't see this question anywhere else, but if so - sorry! I have an
ALT386sx with windows 3.11. The manual implies that the screen will
support 800 x 600 but I have tried all the Win 3.11 drivers supplied
without any luck? Was there ever a driver that would work? Thanks
Dave Amstrad answers:I presume you mean to an external monitor?
obviously there's no way the LCD can do anything more than 640x480. I
seem to remember a long saga with the video card manufacturer where they
kept issuing updated drivers and it's possible they may have eventually
got 800x600 working. I can't remember exactly who they were but have a
pretty strong feeling it may have been Cirrus - if you run MSD.EXE that
will identify which video chipset is in the ALT. Then access the web
site of the relevant company and see if they have a driver for the
chipset. Perhaps an easy answer, if you aren't already using the slot is
just to buy a very cheap (£20ish) SVGA card and plug it into the
ALT's ISA slot and disable the on-board video using the DIP switch (on
my ALT page).Fabien CORTIAL in PARIS ( France ) at 9:5:5 Friday January 16 98
Hi Cliff, sorry to disturb.
I have started with computers 12 years ago ( i'm 25 now )
and of course it was with an Amstrad CPC 464 with an external disk drive and almost 100 games an utilities.
This was a great time, but I've sold the entire material
several years ago, and I wanted to know how I could rediscover the Amstrad on an Intel/pentium machine with
Windows 95.
I've seen CPC++'s site but it's not working on PC.
Please hepl me to enjoy Amstrad's feeling again. Amstrad answers:Well, as you probably read here on my CPC page, there is still a lot of interest
in the CPC and there are quite a few different emulators for it (maybe 3
or 4 on the PC alone). It is regularly discussed on news:comp.sys.amstrad.8bit and the
FAQ for that newsgroup can be found via links on my CPC page. The FAQ
gives you all the details of where to find the emulators. Also on my CPC
page is a link to Kevin Thacker's excellent CPC page and I think he may
have the emulators available for download from his page anyway.Paul Beeston in High Wycombe Bucks. at 14:54:8 Wednesday January 14 98
My friend has an Amstrad 386 (sorry I don't know the model)
that has lost it's BIOS setup.
The setup parameters for the hard disk have also been lost.
He has opened the PC and determined that the type is 17.
Please can you give us the setup parameters for a disk of this type? Amstrad answers:Are you sure it's a 386? I thought we only
fitted type 17 drives to 286 machines (they were 40MB drives). To tell
you the truth the question about "parameters" is irrelevant because in
the Setup.Exe for the 2286 (assuming that's what it is) you only get to
enter a type number - it didn't support settable head/track/sector type
of parameters. So you just run Setup and enter 17 for the drive number and
that's it.Steve in Stockton-on-Tees at 0:2:42 Wednesday January 14 98
I would like to know the difference between a mouse from an
Amstrad 1512,1640,2386 etc and a serial mouse.I have been
told that an Amstrad mouse is a bus mouse.
How can I renew a mouse for an Amstrad.
Do I need a secondhand one from same machine or are there
any on the market.
Many thanks in anticipation ,Steve Amstrad answers:I suggest you have a read of this. The bottom line is that those Amstrad
mice are neither serial nor Bus mice but a weird Amstrad design. You
might still get replacements from www.cpc.co.uk but if it was me I'd
just buy a decent "standard" serial mouse for a fiver and whack it onto
the PC's COM port. In the case of our AT class machines (2386 etc.)
you'll have to disable the motherboard mouse electronics using a link
(detailed elsewhere on this web site).Tom Robson in Milton Keynes at 23:9:18 Tuesday January 13 98
I have a PCW 9512 the original disk drive is 3 inch and does not work
very well It has a second 3and half inch TEAC drive which does work
well. Can I dispense with the 3 inch drive and make the 3 and half inch
drive bootable.? Amstrad answers:Until recently I would have said not but on
the excellent comp.sys.amstrad.8bit Usenet newsgroup I recently heard from
several people who had successfully done this so I stand corrected.
Apparently you just use Disckit to copy the startup disk from 3" to 3.5"
and then refit a 3.5" in place of the 3" drive A: and you can then
startup from that 3.5" disk you just made.Andy Scott in Ascot Berkshire at 19:51:42 Tuesday January 13 98
Thanks for your reply to my questions on 10 January. I have checked all
the ribbon cable connections, and they all seem good. I have now tried
to boot up both with and without the hard drive connected, with the same
result as before. I then took out the floppy drive and fitted it to
another PC, and it operated correctly. It now seems obvious to me that
the fault lies, as accurately decribed in the displayed error
message,with the floppy disc controller. This controller presumably
resides on the motherboard? Is there anything more I can do before I
junk the whole thing? Amstrad answers:It'll depend whether you are willing to spend
anything more on it. If you buy a multi-I/O card (you may pick one up
for a tenner) then you can disable the 3386's onboard FDC, HDC, COM and
LPT ports using the motherboard jumpers and then let the new multi-I/O
handle everything and rewire all the bits to it.Mark Grundy in Maldon, Essex at 14:5:0 Tuesday January 13 98
I have recently replaced the 40MB hard drive in my PC3286 with a 135MB.
Is it possible for me to use the old 40MB drive as a 'D' drive, as it
seems a waste not to use it for something. Amstrad answers:Depends on the HD controllers you are using.
I presume the 135 is an IDE drive and you've got an IDE controller card
for it? The 40 drive was an RLL and while I know that in the past I
used to have two HD controllers in my 2386 (which is the same as 3286 in
this respect) - one was RLL and the other ESDI - this was only possible
because the ESDI controller was VERY clever and could be configured to
reside as a second controller. I guess that both the existing RLL
controller from the 3286 and your new controller for the 135 are both
pretty "dumb" so I doubt whether they could be co-resident. Having said
that is it really worth all the effort for a 40MB drive? You can now get
about 2GB (50 TIMES 40MB!!) for under £100 and older 500MB drives
are available for a lot less so I'd consider migrating everything to a
single bigger drive if I were you.Richard Hann in Ipswich at 13:44:37 Tuesday January 13 98
Flattery first: I have just found this site and am incredibly impressed
by it. Now for the question: I have a PC1640 with an ECD monitor, and
want to use the monitor on an AT with a VEGA card. Having connected it
all up and set the VEGA and Windows to EGA, what I get on the screen is
clear and usable, but only occupies 75% of the available area. There
are no width or height controls, so I have taken the back off and have
been able to adjust presets for the horizontal position, so that the
image is centred, and have expanded it vertically to fill the screen,
but there are still those big bands of black on either side. Can you
please tell me where to find the width adustment? Is it the coil with a
jammed core next to the heatsinked (?flyback) diode? I know about the
dangerous voltages, but would appreciate some guidance as to the best
thing to tweak. Amstrad answers:Well flattery would normally get you anywhere
but I'm afraid I simply don't have the answer. There definitely WAS a
service manual for the ECD monitor but whether it's still available from
www.cpc.co.uk is another
question. Having said that, in my time, I have used our ECD monitors on a
wide variety of EGA cards and never had a problem with size (as the
bishop said to the actress!) so I wonder if you've got a card that is in
some way configurable for it's horizontal scan frequency (though EGA
cards normally weren't) - have you tried a different EGA monitor on it?Demian De Wit in Some school in Belgium at 8:9:42 Tuesday January 13 98
I bought a PDA600. Frustrated by the fact that I had to buy new
batteries for it every 2 weeks, I tried to connect a 4.5 volt regulated
power supply to it. The first few minutes, everything went fine, but
then the PenPad just went blank. Now I can't start it, not with the
power supply, not with ordinary batteries. It just seems dead. Is my PDA
broken for good, or is there component(fuse?)that I can replace? I'm
really desperate, because I find the PDA a wonderful product but now I
can't make use of it! Amstrad answers:The power circuit in a PDA is very sensitive
to the way the power "dies away" for alkaline AA cells. If you used some
other power source it's shutdown circuitry may have been mightily
confused and data corrupted during shutdown. I'd guess that if you
remove all power (including the lithium cell) then short the battery
contacts to make sure any residual capacitance is discharged (or leave
it for half an hour) and then reapply power it should come back to life
(though naturally you will have lost all your data but I'm afraid that's
probably ineviatble now).clifford in Alfriston, East Sussex at 16:28:38 Saturday January 10 98
Hi Cliff a colleauge has an Amstrad 1640 which he currently
uses for his business, which serves his purpose and does not
wish to upgrade the computer unnecessarily. However, is this
computer year 2000 compatable.
Thanks from another Cliff Amstrad answers:Arrrrghhhh! Raw nerve...Gurgle, Wibble, Wibble... You have
no idea how many times I've answered this question and it's starting to
send me potty.
There are two 2K problems, the first (and only one that
really concerns PC users) is trivial and is simply the question as to
whether the PC will show the right date on the Saturday morning after
the party. To tell you the truth I don't know what the answer is for our
10-12 year old computers because we simply do't have any old ones left
here any more. However what I do know is that if I wanted to find out if
a computer could hack it I'd go to the C:\> prompt and type DATE
31/12/99 followed by TIME 23:59 and then switch the computer off and
wait a minute or two. Switch on and then type DATE and TIME to see what
it thinks. (If anyone does this on an Amstrad
PC1512/1640/2086/3086/3286/3386/etc would you please email me and let me
know what happens). If, shock horror, this should fail to work right
then, Oh my God!, it means that on Saturday 1st January 2000 you are
going to have to take 10 seconds of your precious time to type in a DATE
command to put it right again (I do that with my wrist watch every month
with less than 31 days!!). This is NOT A BIG DEAL!! It isn't worth
people getting worked up about and demanding BIOS changes etc. It's just
something the computer doesn't do automatically but which it is easy to
do manually - so what?
The above is NOT the millenium bug. The thing that IS the
millenium bug is also know as the "Marks and Spencer corned beef
problem" and stems from the fact that mainframe computer systems (not
PCs generally) sometimes still run software that was written 30 or more
years ago and in those days a single byte of memory was more precious
than rocking horse droppings so in an effort to conserve as much memory
as possible the programs encoded the year part of dates into a single
byte held as two BCD digits (which in itself was a ridiculous waste
because a byte holding BCD can only hold 00..99 whereas a byte holding a
binary value could represent 0..255 and if they'd done that there may
not have been a problem (if, for example years had been encoded as the
year after 1960 then this would allow for dates up to 2215!!)).
The BCD system works fine up to 1999 (which is held as 99) but falls
over at 2000 because it is held as just 00. So, the classic example, M&S
received a shipment of corned beef in early 1997 (held as 97) which had
a shelf life of 5 years which meant that it would be good until 2002
(held as 02) so the M&S stock control system did the sum 02 - 97 = -95
and concluded that the corned beef was 95 years PAST it's sell by!! THAT
is the millenium bug and, like I said, it doesn't really affect PC
software because it has been written in recent years when storage hasn't
been such a limited resource. However there are some idiot programmers
out there who may have inadvertently introduced errors of this type in
more modern software. Anyway even if your PC software has problems of
this nature that is something you should take up with the software
authors - not the PC manufacturer.steve whiteford in basingstoke hampshire at 10:59:51 Saturday January 10 98
is there an after market for older amstrad pc's. i have apc8086 that i
wish to sell. any ideas ? Amstrad answers:I'm not entirely sure what you mean by an
"apc8086" as we never produced a model with that number but to answer
the general question about secondhand Amstrad PCs (or anyone's for that
matter) there isn't much of a market for 8086 based PCs these days so
you might expect a colour monitor PC1512 to be sold in the classifieds
of your local paper at about £15-20, a PC1640 with ECD monitor and
20MB hard drive might command £20-30 and a PC2/3086 with VGA
monitor could fetch as much as £40 if you were lucky but if you
get a copy of something like Micro Mart you'll see that these days you
can pick up a VGA 386 with 4MB RAM and 80MB hard disk for as little as
£50 so why would anyone go for an 8086 or 80286 unless they were
REALLY desparate,Andy Scott in Ascot, Berkshire at 7:21:23 Saturday January 10 98
I have just aquired a 3386 without a hard disc drive,
thinking that I could get it running using the hard disk
from my old Viglen 286. Having fitted the disc drive, on
booting the machine, I get the error message -
'Floppy disc controller or disc drive error'
I've tried booting from the floppy disc drive, but the boot
process doesn't seem to get that far.
I'd be extremely grateful for any light you could shed. Amstrad answers:The question would seem to be whether you get
that floppy error message even if you remove the Viglen drive all
togther. If you do then maybe it suggest that you have just knocked off
the floppy cable while fitting the hard drive if you don't then
(obviously?) it's an interaction caused by the Viglen drive in which
case the next question would be whether you really expect it to work? I
think the HD controller in a 3386 is IDE but there's a pretty strong
chance that an HD from an old 286 may actually be MFM or RLL. Are you
sure it's an IDE?Ray in Sheffield at 18:52:27 Friday January 9 98
I have an Amstrad Integra P90. The computer recently started up in
safe mode without being asked. We now find we have lost access to the
D drive. How can we get it back, please. We cannot get through to the
help line on the telephone. Many thanks. Amstrad answers:Suggest we try and diagnose this via email.
My first question to you is what exactly you mean by "D:". Had you
partitioned the hard disk or do you mean the CD drive?wendy smith in In an office in Bath at 16:46:15 Friday January 9 98
No way am I reading through all the questions I think I'd die of
boredom! My question is quite simple has anyone out there got Donkey
Kong - the Commodore 64 version that will play on a PowerMac or know of
a web site I can download it from? Cheers! Amstrad answers:Well that says a lot about the intelligence
of Commode 64 users. I don't suppose it had struck you that this is an
AMSTRAD page - dur! I don't suppose you'll have enough brain cells to
understand this, but have you ever tried the Usenet newsgroup
news:alt.c64 ?Martin Brooks in Bridgwater, Somerset, UK at 13:48:23 Wednesday January 7 98
This question is about an Amstrad 2286 with Windows V2.3 and a Logitech
mouse. The mouse is connected using the serial port on the PC and works
perfectly outside of Windows 2.3. However, once Windows is loaded the
mouse stops working. The mouse came with Logitech's old pop-up DOS
front-end, this is working fine and gives access to all exceptspecific
Windows applications. Has anyone any idea how to get the mouse working
without upgrading either the mouse or Windows? Amstrad answers:Sounds to me like you need to contact
Logitech and ask them for their Windows 2.x driver for their mouse
though I kind of doubt whether they'll still have such an antique piece
of software available but you never know! Another tack would be to
contact Microsoft and see if they ever issued updated drivers for
Windows 2.x to include Logitech but then again you may not get very far
as I've previously looked on their web site for old Windows stuff and they don't
seem to have anything pre Win 3.1 (not even Win 3.0).pippi at 1:47:58 Tuesday January 6 98
Can I use a 3086 keyboard whit an MS-Dos 386 PC of other Brands? Amstrad answers:Nope, I'm afraid the keyboards on all
Amstrad's early PCs (pre 5xxx series) used a weird and wonderful
"Amstrad only" interface (to prevent IBM patent infringement) and so
they are only usable on Amstrads.Nigel Wheeler in Kingswinford, West Midlands at 21:43:25 Sunday January 4 98
I (stupidly) formated my c: drive without backing up my Integravision
software. I backed up the file folder but not the .dll files in
the windows folder. I have now downloaded replacement software
from your website but am having difficulty with their
installation. Please could you give me some guidance in this.
My machine is an Amstrad Integra P75. Does the MPEG software in
your download page need an MPEG card fitted to the
Integravision card or is it a software only application? Amstrad answers:Fraid that software I've got available for
download kind of comes "as is". All I did was to take a snapshot of the
working software on my parent's Integra and assume that if you install
this on your own machine then it'll just work. I think the ZIP does
need to be unzipped with -D to create the right directory structure but
after that, you are on your own. As far as I know the "MPEG" software
that is included is just a software only player but I've never really
investigated that. If you want to email me personally at
cliffl@amstrad.com then I'll try to help you further with the
installation but it'll probably have to wait until next time I visit my
parents.William Manley in ORPINGTON, KENT at 12:41:37 Sunday January 4 98
I HAVE A 1512 I WISH TO DONATE TO CHARITY, RATHER THAN TAKE DOWN THE
DUMP - CAN YOU SUGGEST HOW I GO ABOUT THIS. Amstrad answers:My copy of the Yellow Pages has a section for
"Charity shops" doesn't your's?Damian McMillan in London at 15:24:56 Saturday January 3 98
Can the Amstrad PC 1512 take an internal EGA card? I want to upgrade
from mono CGA.... Amstrad answers:Well I would have said a quite definite "No"
as there is no way to disable the on-board CGA controller as it is part
of a gate array and doesn't have a link/jumper for disabling it (which
is something that Amstrad were heavily criticised for which is why we
changed things in the 1640!). Having said that I remember visiting a
computer show about 10 years ago where a company were selling an EGA
"upgrade" for the 1512 but it involved cutting some of the PCB tracks to
install it. However I'm pretty sure that the company will have gone out
of business a long long time ago so I think the answer is still "No".
Considering that you can pick up an EGA 1640 with colour monitor second
hand for about £25-30 would you not consider following that route
instead? I've seen 386 machines with VGA and hard drive being sold
refurbished/second hand for as little as £80-100 so if you could
stretch the pennies I'd highly recommend that as an idea - let's face it
that in this day and age an 8MHZ 8086 computer such as the 1512 is
little more than an antique! Back to the main Questions page Back to latest Questions & Answers page Back to the Amstrad home page